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Trump reverses Obama-era ban on military gear for cops

Law enforcement and other officials examine surplus gear at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington state as they attend an information session for a program that distributes surplus military equipment to state law-enforcement agencies, May 2012. Photo: AP

President Trump is rolling back an Obama-era law that limited the amount of surplus military equipment that was passed on to local law enforcement agencies. The order was announced Monday, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered a speech to the national conference of the Fraternal Order of Police in Tennessee.

Why it matters

Trump has vowed on several occasions to lift the Obama-era ban. It's in keeping with Trump and Sessions' law-and-order agenda that aims to curb violent crimes by providing government support to local police.

Critics argue that the timing of the move could escalate the racial tension that has grown out of the violence in Charlottesville, and further exacerbate the outrage that followed Trump's controversial response.

The facts

Since 1990, the Defense Department allowed the transfer of surplus military equipment and supplies to federal, state, and local law enforcement, per NBC. The program was initially established to aid police in drug investigations, but it was later expanded to include all police missions.

In 2014, the Justice Department concluded that the military-grade equipment, such as riot gear and tear gas, used by law enforcement in the Ferguson, Missouri protests of 18-year-old Michael Brown's death only escalated the unrest.

As a result, Obama issued an executive order that made some gear off-limits, such as bayonets and grenade launchers, while other equipment required proof of the police agency's need.

"We've seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like they're an occupying force, as opposed to a force that's part of the community that's protecting them and serving them," Obama said in announcing the ban in 2015.

The other side

Many police organizations across the country have been pushing Trump for the reversal of the Obama-era ban, as they feel the equipment provides protection when responding to active shooter calls and terrorist attacks, per USA Today.

Some law enforcement officials have also pointed to the use of an armored vehicle that played an important role in the police response to the December 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, per AP.

As Jeff Sessions noted Monday, reinstating the program has economic advantages, such as saving billions of taxpayer dollars by recycling gear that has already purchased.

A White House olive branch: no plan to fire Mueller

After a weekend at war with the Mueller investigation, the White House is extending an olive branch. Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer handling the probe, plans to issue this statement:

“In response to media speculation and related questions being posed to the Administration, the White House yet again confirms that the President is not considering or discussing the firing of the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.”

Why it matters: The White House strategy had been to cooperate with Mueller. So this is an effort to turn down the temperature after a weekend of increasingly personal provocations aimed at the special counsel.

John Dowd, a member of Trump's legal team, said Saturday that the investigation should be shut down "on the merits."

And Trump tweeted: "Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added...does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!"

Trump's trade plan that would blow up the WTO

For months, President Donald Trump has been badgering his economic advisors to give him broad, unilateral authority to raise tariffs — a move that would all but break the World Trade Organization.

His favorite word: “reciprocal.” He’s always complaining to staff about the fact that the U.S. has much lower tariffs on some foreign goods than other countries have on the same American-made goods. The key example is cars: The European Union has a 10 percent tariff on all cars, including those manufactured in America, and China hits all foreign-made cars with 25 percent tariffs. But the U.S. only charges 2.5 percent for foreign cars we import.

Trump and ascendant nationalist economic advisor Peter Navarro think this is wildly unfair. So the president wants Congress to pass a bill to let him raise tariffs to reciprocal levels, according to three sources with direct knowledge.

One source familiar with Trump's thinking told me that Trump doesn't want to raise tariffs — he wants to use the new power this bill would give him as leverage to force other countries to lower theirs. Some of his advisers, including Gary Cohn, have told associates this won't work and could lead to a trade war. CNBC's Eamon Javers was the first to report this development.

Trump initially asked senior officials, including then-Staff Secretary Rob Porter, to draft an executive order to let him do it unilaterally. Porter and others explained he couldn't legally do that by himself. So now, Trump is asking for a bill.

Trump's idea would effectively break the WTO. One of the core WTO principles — which has underpinned globalization and trade for 70 years — is an idea called "most favored nation status."​ Countries that belong to the WTO have all agreed to charge the same tariff rate for imports from all other WTO members.

Wealthier nations like the U.S. have tended to commit to lower tariff rates than poorer nations. The U.S. can re-negotiate tariff rates, but is supposed to go through the WTO process — and whatever rate they re-negotiate they have to give to everybody else. Trump doesn't like that. He wants to match tariffs nation-by-nation, product-by-product.

This is probably dead-on-arrival in Congress: Most Republicans on the Hill are free-traders and nearly universally opposed to Trump's tariffs. They won't get behind this. And a source familiar with Trump's legislative affairs team's thinking says such a bill has little chance of success. Trump, however, thinks the idea is a no-brainer. He mused aloud to staff in an Oval Office meeting last week, "Who could be against reciprocal?"

Why it matters: Trump is just getting started on his hardline trade mission. Gary Cohn and Rob Porter were among the few in the White House who would fight for free trade policies. Once they’re gone, the most influential voices on trade will be economic nationalists (with the possible exception of Larry Kudlow; we’ll have to wait and see if he’ll start off his tenure as chief economic advisor by going to war with the president over trade.)

What else to watch for: Aggressive tariffs against China. As Politico first reported, when Trump's team presented him with a package of tariffs that would target the equivalent of $30 billion a year in Chinese imports, Trump told them he wanted even bigger tariffs.

Axios has further learned that in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday, Trump told Kevin Hassett, the chair of his Council of Economic Advisers: "Kevin, you've gotta make the number bigger." Hassett told Trump he'd have to go away and study the potential impacts of these larger tariffs against China, according to a source familiar with the interaction. Two sources with direct knowledge tell me the administration's current tentative plan is to potentially put tariffs on hundreds of Chinese products by the end of March.